What’s inside the Blackberry Playbook v2.1 update

If you are one of the Blackberry Playbook owners you would have heard about the latest update to v2.1. After what seems like eternity, RIM has finally released v2.1 to the public !

It is ready to download (even in South Africa) and it around 331mb – so there are major changes.

A couple of the changes that I have been looking forward to:

1. SMS via the Playbook. This is done via Blackberry Bridge where you not only have access to BBM from the Playbook, but now you also have access to SMS inbox so you can read and reply to any SMS

2. Landscape/ Portrait issue is now solved so you can use your tablet whichever way you see fit. If you like to “thumb type” you can hold the tablet in Portrait mode. If you like keyboard two handed typing, lay it in Landscape mode.

3. Android Apps. This is the big one. V2.1 has many improvements to the Android app environment. These are now run in separate windows allows you to multi-task between Android apps easier

4. Email folders can now be synched individually as you can include or exclude folders. If you use an IMAP , you can also now get full access to your mail folders.

5. One downside of setting up the Playbook was that you needed WiFi to get going – this is no longer the case. Also with the introduction of patch updates you no longer need to download massive files every time the system is updated.

one bug I found: I had some apps that needed updating before the update to v2.1. These are free apps. However when I try to update them post the v2.1 upgrade it asked me for my Credit Card number or PayPal ? not sure what that is about…

Finally, the one great feature that I use a lot is the Print to Go where you can hit the print button in any app on your desktop and then select the Playbook at the “printer” It then send the document across to the Playbook and files it neatly.

Really has a Blackberry 10 kind of feel to it when its in portrait mode…